Good morning folks. Sunny and cool in the east.
Just catching up on the posts from yesterday. I never served but still have interesting memories of Fort Hood. I did deep embeds with both the 1st Cav and 4th ID which meant spending weeks there with units then deploying with them to Iraq - Baghdad, Tikrit, Mosul. I got to know Ray Odierno well -later chief of staff of the Army -when he was newly minted as a 2-star commanding the 4th. I saw the gut-churning emotion of battalions leaving their families and heading for war. Seeing the 7th Cav march out of a huge gymnasium leaving their families behind to a band playing Custer’s old theme song Garry Owen, wives and kids crying, will be a memory til I die. Some of those guys —not a huge number, maybe a couple dozen -never came home.
I’m sorry to see the name change. Hood was a Kentuckian, born and raised in Owingsville. He was a legendary division commander of Texas troops, eventually promoted over his head. He sacrificed an arm and leg for a cause in which he believed. Life in America, 2023.